Shielding of personnel and sensitive electronic equipment on a space vehicle from radiation damage becomes more important when the space vehicle moves beyond the Earth's atmosphere for an extended time interval. Extant radiation can include gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet rays, neutrons, protons, pi mesons, energetic ions and electrons, among others, and several types of these radiation particles can be received simultaneously. Each type of particle has its own energy transfer characteristics and requires particular materials and apparatus for radiation protection. Simultaneous receipt of several types of such radiation makes it difficult to protect the personnel and equipment without increasing the mass of the protective apparatus beyond reasonable bounds. Further, the dominant radiation types can change as the vehicle changes its location or orientation so that prompt changes in types of protection may also be necessary.
What is needed is a system that receives two or more types of radiation (e.g., gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet rays, neutrons, protons, pi mesons, energetic ions and/or electrons) and converts and dissipates a substantial portion of the radiation energy. Preferably, the system should be flexible so that, when different radiation particles A and B, having numerical fractions fA and fB (0<fA+fB≦1), are known to be present in the radiation, the material composition can be modified to approximately optimize a metric representing total energy or total fluence dissipated.